Gold Dust Lounge

It would be easy and not necessarily wrong to categorize Gold Dust Lounge as a surf act. But that assumption on its face is lazy because Gold Dust Lounge are so much more. The brain child of Russell Mofsky, previously of the band Quit, Gold Dust Lounge make “soundtracks to imaginary films” according to their bio, and the make-believe movie this band is scoring certainly sounds like it should get made.

The outfit’s new self-titled album dropped recently, and right out of the gate, opening track “Desperado” is a self-aware surf tune with an imaginary Western score channeling Ennio Morricone. “No Doze” takes its vamping percussion cues from “Low Rider,” by War, and creates a whole new low-rider persona outfitted with chicken pickin’ guitar and noise makers a la Captain Beefheart. If all of that sounds a bit much, well it is, but it’s not too much and it’s not over-crowded.

“Barfly” features South Florida punk laureate Rob Elba of Holy Terrors and Shark Valley Sisters fame doing his best Charles Bukowski-Tom Waits vocal narration, while Mofsky on guitar channels the tactile sound of Marc Ribot, an impressive feat. To recap, that’s Morricone, Beefheart, Waits and Ribot in the first three songs, so not exactly the elements of a standard surf rock album.

Does this sound like hyperbole to you? That there’s no way these elements could exist together in nature because of the explosive attributes at their core? Well, fella, I may not know karate but I know crazy, and this album is somewhere between sublime and divine in its ability to soothe and stoke the fires at the same time.

This film that doesn’t exist would have a hell of a cast and be an anthology of short stories by the likes of Quentin Tarantino and David Lynch, maybe with a dash of Sergio Leone. One might be forgiven if they summed up the whole of the band’s parts in one word: cool. But don’t take this writer’s word for it; pick up the album at the record release party. It’s the best soundtrack for a hot night with cool people money can buy.

Gold Dust Lounge play a record release party 10pm August 17 at Lagniappe House in Miami. facebook.com/thegolddustlounge/ ~ Tim Moffatt